developing your audience through a “world worthy of devotion”

….and if you don’t want to watch the video, this is what I said:

Once you have the reader’s attention you have to engage her and keep her coming back for more. That’s why storytelling is so important, and a good author platform tells its own story as it grows and evolves along with the author. The readers get to be part of that journey and participate in it and even co-create it.

New forms of technology create – after an initial period of resistance – new forms of storytelling, and the Internet is seeing the rise of transmedia storytelling or what Frank Rose terms “deep media”. Narratives are no longer so linear. Different strands of a single story can be told across multiple platforms at the same time, through books and TV and games and movies, which leads to a deeply immersive experience and creates what a friend of mine referred to as a “world worthy of devotion”.

How can you turn your author platform into a “world worthy of devotion?” How can you turn your platform into a story you’re telling through multiple platforms, whether it’s blogs and tweets and videos and podcasts and pictures and any other form of media that strikes your fancy and plays to your particular strengths? Each platform is an opportunity to reveal a different side of both yourself and your “big meaning”.

Perhaps the new challenge of the 21st century storyteller is how to turn yourself into the most interesting story of all.

Dec 19, 2010

By Justine Musk

2010-12-19

because you're a creative badass. subscribe.

I write what I think and Feel and go from there. I know my writing is not the best (my own worst critic); however, once in awhile I get a Grain of Something Good in there.
Just wish I could get that “world worthy of devotion” to stop at my blog someday.

I have not been able to wrap it “All” together but I think building a solid base of “Followers” is a start.
Now it is just finding the “Right” mix to bring in more.

As for your “world worthy devotion”, I will continue to keep coming back as there are a multiple of Nuggets here on your Blog.

You’re speaking to a deep need here, the need to be seen, to be listened to, to be honored. I appreciate that.
Your post makes me wonder whether there are other worlds that people might want to create. I don’t know that I want to create a world worthy of devotion, but perhaps one worthy of connection and co-creation.

This was a great post! I love this idea of surrounding your world with storytelling and making it really rewarding. When I was in the interactive media world, we talked a lot about this in terms of multimedia aiding the storytelling and this works the same way. When I think about worlds worthy of devotion, I think about the show Supernatural. There’s the TV show but there are also books and min- webisodes. All types of things.

Or the new flash fiction that gets told through audio, pictures and interactivity.

I try to tell my stories in different ways with my own blog. I have my podcast, I try to incorporate handwritten bits, I do some flash fiction here and there….

Right now, it’s all over the place but in the future, I want my presence on different platforms to really aid my online presence.

What are some examples of some people who do it well? I’m curious.

It’s about giving people more of what they want.
For me, I have my tentacles going out

These two minutes bring so much emotion into people’s mind. It appeals to all who now think, “My story is not worth telling.”. Yet we all have exceptional life stories, we just didn’t have the tools yet to make them available in an easy to achieve and valuable fashion.

A “world worthy of devotion” eh? What a glorious graphic mind-picture that conjures up for me!

To me, my job as the storyteller is to take my readers to a new level of reading enjoyment; a place where the real and unreal are juxtaposed; a place where the sheer power of carefully chosen words can finally be made manifest; a place where genre is something to be created, not rehashed.

But does this make me arrogant? I hope not, for those who appreciate true art (like you) will always give the artist all the latitude he/she needs to express what is new and, as yet, unknown. To see the world from yet another perspective, through long-time training in the art of listening to, and seeing, what most writers and readers simply miss each day.

Creative writing is very monastic and oftentimes misunderstood by family and friends. But I say to those among us who are brave enough and certain enough of their creative North Star, to go forward. Go forward and lead those who wish to follow. The gathering may at first be small, but, like all great things, what is undeniably unique will soon grow a following like ripples in a mirrored pond.

Hello Justine,
Just stumbled upon your website as I was researching how to develop a presence on the web. Great information. I am just starting a blog on my website http://www.hotflashdiaries.com and appreciate the information you are providing. Thanks!

On a personal note, I am a full-time single mom with three daughters, a doctoral candidate in psychology, and am working on a book, so I related to your personal situation as well.